Using the latest technological and innovative advances, the DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga continues to evolve and improve the Bundesliga experience for an ever-expanding international audience of licensees and broadcasting partners. The 2018-19 season saw a number of new International Product Portfolio (IPP) features rolled out, including enhanced player and team statistics and graphics, and the new Commentary Live Tool. Other developments for media partners include access to tailored localized highlight clips, being able to broadcast matches in ultra-high definition, and new camera angles and graphics.
The IPP provides DFL international media partners with moving image and social media content from the Bundesliga. IPP coverage comprises more than 30 different product formats, including commentated live games, reports, documentaries, show formats, interviews, and content for licensees’ social media channels. A pool of 15 English speaking commentators cover the live matches, assisted by 16 co-commentators, including former professional soccer players such as Patrick Owomoyela, Karl-Heinz Riedle, and Steffen Freund.
Israeli startup WSC Sports Technologies has created a revolutionary process that allows international partners to put together personal highlights reels of the Bundesliga’s many overseas superstars. If a digital partner based in the United States wishes to automatically capture goals, assists, and other tricks and skills of USMNT players Weston McKennie (Schalke 04) or John Brooks (VfL Wolfsburg) in Bundesliga action, they now can. The Bundesliga was the first European league to benefit from this highlight-tool.
WSC Sports uses intelligent algorithms that, amongst other factors, can listen to and interpret an audio feed from a match, and, using parameters established at the start of each season, automatically capture key highlights involving a particular player whenever he is mentioned. An editor then examines each highlights package, before media partners access the clips via the Bundesliga’s B2B-Portal. In the near future, licensees will have the chance to gain direct access to the system and establish their own parameters for generating clips.
Broadcasting in UHD is another innovative development that is becoming increasingly prevalent in the Bundesliga. Saturday evening kick-offs are typically the games chosen to be broadcast in UHD, and feature English commentary and UHD graphics. The UHD coverage is produced with 21 broadcast cameras. Six of those are native UHD cameras, whereas the others capture footage in the HD 1080p50 standard and that video is subsequently improved to meet UHD standards. International broadcasters can choose whether they wish to show a particular match in UHD. Eleven Sports in Poland, China’s PP Sports, and Viasat channels in Scandinavia all regularly broadcast Bundesliga games in this format.
New camera angles are giving fans watching on television the feeling that they are almost inside the stadium. This is largely thanks to developments such as the fly-cam, where an aerial camera zooms along a wire to present spectacular in-field close-ups. The Bundesliga is one of only a handful of leagues fortunate enough to use this sort of technology. The experience is enhanced via the use of detailed photorealistic graphics that bring to life logos, trophies, match statistics, player head-to-heads, and many other features.